We started the week by learning about the continent of Asia and the animals that live there. The children especially loved learning about pandas and tigers. Once we had learnt about the animals, the children completed another page in their Amazing Animals book, writing about their favourite animal's habitat, diet and a fun fact about them.

The theme for Science Week this year has been change and adapt. Linking with our animal theme, we decided to learn about the changes that take place during the lifecycle of a frog. The children enjoyed watching the time-lapse video showing how this amazing metamorphosis takes place. We then sequenced the different stages of the lifecycle and learnt some new words such as froglet and gills. It was fascinating to learn how not only the outside features of a tadpole change and develop, but also its internal organs, as it switches its diet from plants to insects. We also read the storybook Tad, by Benji Davies, which is all about a little tadpole who grows into a frog with her tadsisters and tadbrothers, who luckily all manage to escape being eaten by the huge fish, Big Blub!

The children really enjoyed writing about each stage of the frog's lifecycle, independently generating ideas about what to write. Their confidence to write the sounds they hear in words is developing well and they love applying what we have learnt in phonics during these activities.

The children showed lots of creativity this week when I set them the challenge of making frogs using card, glue, tape and googly eyes. I showed them how they might like to do this but then encouraged them to think of their own ways. The children made some brilliant little frogs, joining, folding, snipping and drawing to create their models. I was really impressed by the variety of strategies the children chose to use and how they solved problems to get to their desired outcome.

Once the frogs had been made, we thought it would be fun to create a habitat for them. Using a large piece of card as a base, the children mixed lots of different blues to paint a pond for them. They then added sand for the pond edge and collected rocks from the outside space for the frogs to sit on. Some children added leaves from outside for the tadpoles to eat and made cardboard lilypads for them to hide under. The challenge of making frogspawn was solved by using white pom poms and painting little black dots on them. The children then decided to use clay to make some little tadpoles to complete the lifecycle. This project was very much led by the children and reflects their excellent understanding of what has been taught. Inspired by the story Tad, some children even made Big Blub, recognising that some predatory animals would be a threat to the tadpoles.

We invited Mr McCarthy to visit Form 1 to hear all about our frog project and he was extremely impressed by the children's knowledge and ability to explain what they had learnt. He asked some tricky questions, but the children answered clearly and with bundles of confidence.

In maths this week, we have been learning about the properties of 3D shapes. We sorted 2D and 3D shapes and discussed new vocabulary such as faces, edges and vertices. To further understand the properties of 3D shapes, the children made their very own shapes using lollipop sticks and clay! They had to think about the edges and corners and they did a wonderful job at making triangular based pyramids, square based pyramids, cubes and cuboids. Later in the week Form 1 went on a 2D and 3D shape hunt around the school and had lots of fun filling in their tally charts every time a shape was spotted.